


Only You, Q. Only You.

by FeelingFredly



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, Possessive James Bond, Public Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:51:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20975450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelingFredly/pseuds/FeelingFredly
Summary: Q understood going in that nothing that happened during a mission was real, but it had become increasingly difficult to separate himself from the mission. Pretending to be Simon Gardiner was simple enough.  Simon was a tech geek who’d made a pile of money before the dot-com crash, and Q could identify.  James, though, was a different matter. As James Gardiner he had been affection personified, the performance of his rôle as besotted husband transcendent. No one watching would ever doubt that he was in love with his Simon.And Q was watching





	Only You, Q. Only You.

Q felt him before he saw him. He could sense him as he approached, a purposeful crawl through the crowd of people that brought him up right behind him.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you hiding here with the potted palms?” There was a smirk in his voice, but Q refused to turn and look at him to confirm it. “I suppose it was your only real option. On the dance floor you’d stand out like a peacock amongst the pigeons.”

Q looked down at his waistcoat with its subtle shimmer of blue and green. He’d thought it looked rather smart when he’d chosen the fabric; apparently, Bond agreed.

007’s voice was dark with something Q was hesitant to quantify. The harsh words they’d exchanged earlier had faded, but there was still a hint of anger there. There was something else, too. Hunger for attention, he thought. It was only fair. He’d starved for Bond’s attention for years.

He drew in a breath to settle the butterflies that had taken up residence in his stomach. When M made the decision that they were both required for this mission, he balked. Yes, drugs and guns and human trafficking were bad, but hacking a smuggler’s computer system was something he could do from home on a lazy Saturday morning. M, however, wanted the two of them on the ground, he wanted experienced eyes on the enterprise and a deadly shot there to protect the Quartermaster while he dug through the dirty laundry and removed any… _surprises_ before they became full-fledged problems. Their cover was, of course, as a couple because there was apparently no other reason for two men to be traveling together. Staying in a suite together. Doing everything but bloody _showering_ together.

An image of Bond wet, dripping soap, with his face turned up into the shower’s spray as they stood pressed together in the too-small-for-two shower in the hotel’s en suite, exploded unbidden behind his eyelids. Details from long years of watching him remotely from Q Branch filled in any gaps in his imagination and he couldn’t stop the quick inhalation that accompanied it. He hated the look on Bond’s face when the sound registered, when he saw the flush riding high on Q’s cheekbones, and he knew how far under Q’s skin he’d gotten.

Damn the man. Damn this whole charade.

Q understood going in that nothing that happened during a mission was real, but it had become increasingly difficult to separate himself from the mission. Pretending to be Simon Gardiner was simple enough. Simon was a tech geek who’d made a pile of money before the dot-com crash, and Q could identify. James, though, was a different matter. As James Gardiner he had been affection personified, the performance of his rôle as besotted husband transcendent. No one watching would ever doubt that he was in love with _his Simon_.

And Q was watching.

The first time Bond touched him it almost stung, the calloused fingertips unexpected and burning against his skin. When Q jumped and pulled away, a strong arm reeled him back in, slowly, like he was a sport fish trying to break free of the line that held him, or a horse being broken to bridle. After that the touches came more often—a light weight on his hip, a warm hand on his wrist—each one accompanied by a murmured endearment that brought a full flush to Q’s face. Once he’d acclimated to the gentle touches, there came more possessive ones. James would kiss him lazily at they dined in the hotel restaurant. He’d wrap an arm around Q’s waist or stand behind him and rest the point of his chin on Q’s shoulder, the bony tip digging in sharply as his warm breath teased Q’s ear.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it, that he didn’t shiver into Bond’s welcome heat, or lie awake each night fighting the urge to roll over and embrace the maddening man sleeping as silently as the dead next to him.

“I wasn’t hiding, James,” he answered, forcing lightness into his tone. Of course, he’d been hiding, and James knew it, but he would die before admitting it. “I was simply watching the people. They are all quite beautiful.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the glittering party on the other side of the French doors. “Not exactly the kind of view one gets at the office. More like going to the theatre and watching everyone as they put on a show.”

“You’re the one being watched,” James replied as he spun Q around in his arms, pulling him close and pressing himself into the long line of Q’s back. “They can’t keep their eyes off of you.”

What he meant was that their smuggler, Aristides Bouras, couldn’t keep his eyes off of him, and for whatever reason, it infuriated Bond. Like a jealous dog with a bone, he staked his claim unsubtly, with hands and lips and little breathless whispers, and just as unsubtly Bouras ignored him.

As soon as they’d arrived it became clear that there was something about Q, about _Simon_, that fascinated Bouras. Everywhere they went, the Greek followed. Quietly. Carefully. Dark eyes glued to Q’s wild curls and pale skin, to the point that his own companion would sigh and roll his eyes dramatically before wandering off to find more entertaining pursuits. It made keeping track of the smuggler ridiculously easy. It made other things considerably more difficult.

It was, in fact, what he and Bond had fought over. Q suggested that since Bouras was more interested in pursuing _him_ than in conducting whatever business he was ostensibly in The Netherlands to complete, that he return Bouras’ interest, conducting his own version of one of Bond’s honeypot missions. Then Bond would be free to investigate the people with Bouras, track their movements, discover which warehouses they were holding their goods in… basically, anything that needed to happen could happen.

Bond didn’t care for the suggestion. Q could still hear him… _Are you so desperate to get away from me that you’d crawl into bed with a gun runner? I’d have thought a double O agent was deadly enough for you._

He hadn’t responded well, snapping back that at least he’d know what to expect with Bouras, that it was better to be lied to by a stranger than be led on by someone who was supposed to be an ally that he knew he couldn’t trust. _The only side you’re on, Bond, is your own and the Queen’s, and while I do prefer men, I’m no Queen. _He’d spat the words at the blond, years of being the smartest in the room teaching him that the best defense a good offense._ What does it matter, anyway? Why do you care if I follow Bouras to bed, or back to Greece for that matter, as long as we get what we bloody well came for?_

Bond’s eyes had burned like gas jets, a blue so hot that he was certain it would burn him to ash if he stared too long, and Q longed to take it all back, to soothe the beast he’d somehow stirred, but he refused to cower before his agent, even if he was James fucking Bond. So, he stood there in the bedroom with his chin raised slightly and steel in his spine for what felt like forever, until something in the air shifted, and he realized that Bond’s anger had morphed into something else. Something much more dangerous to his peace of mind.

He grabbed his suit bag from the closet and fled. Dressing in a hastily booked second room, he’d avoided Bond as long as he’d been able to, but the Gardiners had been invited to the party this evening by Bouras himself, and they couldn’t just say no.

Blunt fingers dug into Q’s hip, yanking him from his reverie, and he gave into the pressure Bond was placing against his side and allowed the older man to lead him onto the dance floor. Bond’s shoulders were broad and strong under the bespoke dinner jacket, his hair a burnished gold where it lay barely curling on his collar. His skin was still tanned from his last mission, and his hands were large and rough from years of abuse. Q cataloged each detail as if it were a sin, and then breathed in and was swamped with his scent--Cyprus lime and spice and amber, all underlined with the undeniably masculine scent of James. He was lost and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Since you’ve spent all evening hiding in the shadows, I think it’s time for you to be seen, don’t you?” James said it offhandedly as he led them further out into the throng of dancers, but there was nothing careless about his movements. The lights were dim and the music slow and sultry and Q followed him without hesitation.

“I don’t think anyone is actually looking,” he replied, trying to channel Simon Gardiner in the face of his inner turmoil. “But I love dancing with you—you make it so easy to follow.”

“Well, then,” Bond murmured in Q’s ear, his breath sending shivers away down my sides, “we’ll just have to give them something to look at, won’t we?”

With that he lowered one hand to cup Q’s bum, fingers digging in just enough that anyone watching would notice.

“James!” Q whispered frantically, “What do you think you’re doing?”

The hand moved, smoothing and stroking along his thigh in time to the music, grazing the seam between his legs, and then playing with the hem of Q’s jacket before sneaking under the flap of the double vent. Q felt his gut tighten in anticipation.

“What do you think I’m doing?” James answered coolly, showing no sign of agitation or interest, but his fingers continued their gentle torment, lightly tracing the cleft of Q’s arse every time they turned.

Q tried to calm himself with a deep breath only to find that he’d pressed the two of them even closer together, and he couldn’t stop the shudder that raced through him. Bond lowered his head to the crease between his neck and shoulder, brushing words against the tiny sliver of skin above his collar.

“Don’t fight,” he ordered. “I will take care of everything, but you need to stop fighting me.” His eyes were steady, and his profile could have been carved in marble and seemed fitting. His lower lip was full, and Q was suddenly consumed with a desire to take it between his teeth, to tug and tease the way James’s hand was teasing him, but James wouldn’t allow that. Instead he leaned his head forwards a fraction and rested it on his shoulder, all of his resistance finally washed away in the onslaught of James’s attentions.

The teasing hand resumed its journey, now completely hidden by the vent of his jacket, the calluses on Bond’s fingers sliding under the satin back of Q’s waistcoat, each pass a little higher than the last, the heat of his skin burning through the fine cotton material of his evening shirt, hips pressed insistently against him, the evidence of Bond’s arousal clear. He panted lightly as his excitement built, the electricity coursing through him, crackling under oversensitive skin, and he groaned quietly as he rocked his own hard length against the older man.

Q looked up through his lashes and met Bond’s eyes. He looked enrapt—a man possessed—and Q found that he had to close his eyes against the intensity of that blue gaze. In his personal darkness he could feel every shift of James’s muscles under his hands, could hear him breathe, could even, he imagined, hear his heart beating wildly in his chest.

But maybe that was his own.

They swayed gently to the music as Bond guided them around the floor and Q could feel bodies as they passed. He shivered at the thought of their eyes on him, watching him as his pretend husband played with his body, there in the open, for anyone to see.

Bond finally led them to a quieter space on the edge of the floor, still exposed but a little darker. Q felt him inhale and then one hand slid up to unbutton the front of his jacket, slipping inside, rubbing against a pebbled nipple through the layers of material.

Q jumped in his arms and his eyes flew open. James shook his head minutely and Q took a shuddering breath and settled back into his embrace, waiting to see if he would do it again.

“You like that, don’t you?” James asked quietly as he stroked the nipple again. A little whine escaped the back of Q’s throat and he nodded. “Say it,” he demanded, and Q raised his eyes and licked his lips before answering. “Yes.”

James smiled then, a feral looking thing, and it sent another shudder through Q.

“You sit behind your computer monitors watching everything and everyone else, but I think you like to be watched,” he whispered against Q’s curls as they swayed to a new song playing. “The thrill of possibly being seen, of being caught, it excites you—I can feel how hard you are right now. I bet your pretty prick gets so wet when you get excited, all shiny and slick,” he chuckled at Q’s gasp, and he wondered if James could feel the wetness he predicted as it spread a tell-tale spot on the front of his pants.

Q sucked in a shaky breath. “The mission…” He tried to get the words out, but Bond rolled his hips, pressing them obscenely together, and his voice faded away on a whimper.

“I don’t give a damn about the mission. Tonight, you’re mine. You like being mine,” satisfaction laced his voice. “Perhaps I should let everyone here watch you—watch as that blush you try to hide spreads over your skin, watch you tremble in my arms, watch as I bring you off again and again.” His voice had lost its smooth satisfied sound and instead was gravelly with desire; Q rubbed against him to show him how it affected him.

The words stirred a longing in him—something he’d always fought and always failed to overcome—and he shoved his insecurities down into a box he would unpack later and followed the most dangerous man he would ever know into the darkness.

Tonight, he would be Bond’s.

“Please,” Q whispered, afraid of wishing and afraid of getting what he wished for.

“Please?” James replied, all mocking gone from his voice. “Yes. I do please.” His hand dropped, cupping the younger man’s arse, squeezing and lifting him so they could rub against one another. He pushed past the waistband of Q’s trousers, sliding his hand along his bared spine, until he could slip a finger lower, sliding it in tight circles over the sensitive skin of his hole, sending shockwaves of goosebumps radiating from his touch, each contact making him dizzier with desire. 

Before he knew what James intended, he’d been led outside onto the wide walk that ran along the ballroom. The agent scanned the area, his ingrained training kicking in as he evaluated their position, unconsciously checking for hidden threats. French doors lined the walk and people were milling in and out as he led the weak-kneed Quartermaster towards the balustrade, and he finally turned his focus to the man in his arms, his safety concerns apparently assuaged.

Q’s legs were shaking, and he was breathless. He held tightly to Bond’s upper arm, afraid that if he let go, he’d melt to the ground in a boneless heap.

James had raised his other hand and pulled Q’s jacket aside. His body shielded them mostly from view, but as the night air drifted across exposed skin Q knew that if anyone walked too closely, they’d see… everything. He groaned. “James. We can’t… I mean…”

“You’re beautiful you know,” the words hung between them leaving him speechless, “too fae to be handsome, with those green eyes and that hair. Perhaps that explains it. You’ve bewitched me. Every time I see you, I have to force myself to step back, to keep enough distance between us so that I can’t simply touch you. Taste you. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve sat through watching the beating of your pulse. I watch it flutter there, just at the edge of your collar, and want nothing more than to drag you into my lap and suck that proof of life between my teeth so everyone can see the mark I left there and know you belong to me. _Just me_.”

The possessiveness in Bond’s voice took Q’s breath away. Certainly, they’d flirted over the comms during the years since the older man had taken one look at him across from that damned Turner painting and dismissed him out of hand. They’d even occasionally been more than a little inappropriate, but he’d never heard this _want_ so clearly from the blond, and now that he had, he couldn’t help wanting to hear it again, but that was dangerous territory.

“I bet you say that to all the boys.” Q took cover in the snark that had always been his refuge, but Bond refused to play along. He’d given up on any attempt at subtlety, letting his big hands roam freely, touching him, untucking his clothes and rucking up his waistcoat, unmaking him from the outside in, leaving him nowhere to hide.

James’s eyes glinted in the half-light. “Look over by the cedar.” His voice was even but there was a new note in it. Q’s eyes flew towards one of the French doors where a potted cedar provided a deeper shadow. A man was standing there, eyes locked on them, watching as James palmed Q’s hard cock through the placket of his trousers.

_Bouras._

“He’s looking at you, not entirely certain of what he’s seeing, but it doesn’t matter. He’s hard. Aching. From looking at _you_.” James’s voice dipped and he lowered his mouth to the juncture of Q’s shoulder and throat where he gently lapped at the skin.

“He wishes he could be the one touching you, kissing you, _fucking_ you. But he’ll have to settle for the fantasy, because after tonight, no one will ever touch you the way I do.”

As he spoke, he tugged the zipper of Q’s trousers down and the brunet felt another spurt of pre-come leak from his cock, this time into a greedy hand.

“Let’s go back to the room,” Q gritted out the words as he gripped James’s biceps, the muscles hard under his fingers, and he imagined them holding him up as James fucked him against the wall of their suite so hard that passers-by in the hallway would stop and gawk. “We can’t do this here.”

“We can, and we will, _Simon_,” James growled softly. “I am going to make you come. Right here, right now, with everyone around. I’m going to jerk you off until you’re shuddering and whimpering for me. And then, if you beg sweetly enough, I’ll let you come.” He leaned in and whispered hotly against the shell of Q’s ear. “After that, I’ll take you back to the hotel and fuck you until can’t remember anything but the feeling of my mouth on your body and my cock in your arse. I’ll cover you in my come and mark up your china doll skin. I’m going to make you cry and whine and beg to come, and then, when you’re done and so sensitive you want to howl, I will do it again and again until you fall apart because you just can’t take any more.”

He reached inside the fabric of Q’s pants and stroked the slippery skin he found there, pulling the foreskin back to expose the reddened tip. His grip was almost punishing, but as he finished speaking, he started stroking more smoothly with a little twist of his wrist as he reached the crown, and Q bucked helplessly against the pleasure of his hand.

Q tossed his curls out of his eyes and caught a glimpse of their watcher. Bouras was stroking himself through his tuxedo pants and the sight of it made him shudder again. James’s eyes followed his and he leaned in to whisper.

“Do you want me to call him over here?” He asked the question as if he were asking someone to pass the toast at the breakfast table. “Do you want me to let him put his hands on you? Let him finger your arse? Or do you just want more of this?” He slid his hand up and down again, fucking him with his fist. Q let out a little cry as he leaned against the edge of the stone wall and rocked into the fingers wrapped around his cock, thrusting harder and harder against that calloused cage until his orgasm crashed into him and he came, vision whiting out around the edges, hot stripes of his come splashing across Bond’s hand.

The blond looked down at him with something akin to awe on his face.

“Christ, but you’re lovely. Amazing when you come for me—taking the pleasure that only I can give you,” his voice was thick with desire. “I can’t wait to see you spread out under me. Want to suck you until you can’t put two and two together, and then fuck you hard and paint you with my come. _God_.”

James rutted against him, cock hot and heavy between them, and made a pained sound deep in his throat as he fought for control. Q thought he’d never heard anything more beautiful.

Before he could stop himself, he reached up with one hand and cupped Bond’s cheek and pressed their lips together. It wasn’t as graceful as the pretend kisses that James had lavished upon him, but there was something so much more to it this time that it took his breath away and he had to rest his forehead against the blond’s to recover.

Bond quickly turned him away from the garden and let him rest against the balustrade as he quickly put his clothes to rights for him as Q shuddered helplessly through the aftershocks. A hand rested warm against the back of his neck and they stood there, just breathing, until Q was steady again.

Bouras was gone when they finally looked. Q couldn’t find it in himself to mind.

“So,” he said, his voice hoarse, “that was unexpected.”

James let out a breathless laugh. “Only to you, my dear Q. Only to you.”

Q looked up at him, trying to gauge Bond’s seriousness and failing. “I seriously doubt that. I can’t imagine that anyone would have predicted,” he waved a hand loosely between them, “_this_.”

The older man sighed and dropped a surprisingly chaste kiss on Q’s lips. “If that’s so, then why is there a year-old betting pool in Q Branch concerning the intersection of the intimate lives of their fearless leader and he who is known as the destroyer of kits? That’s a direct quote, by the way. I know for a fact that Moneypenny has a hundred pounds on you turning me down.” He smiled. “I’m hoping that won’t bias your decision.”

Q felt his breath catch in his throat and blushed at the faintness of his voice. “What decision?”

James studied him for a moment, and Q wondered if he was going to refuse to answer. Finally, he spoke. “The decision as to whether or not you want to be _my Simon_. For real, though. Not just for the mission.”

Green eyes looked up at him surprised, and then suddenly, not surprised at all. “How long have you known?”

James wrapped his arms around the smaller man tightly. “That your given name is Simon? Oh, for ages.” He smirked. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to stop myself from saying something like _Simon says bring your gear back in one piece_.”

Q burrowed his face into the warmth of James jacket and groaned. “You’d better not, or I’ll send you out next time with nothing but bubble gum and paper clips.”

“Not even a water pistol?”

“No. Not even the big paper clips.”

They stood like that for a few minutes, the music distant, the laughter from the party still tinkling in the warm summer evening, and Q braced himself. He was Quartermaster for MI6 for Christ’s sake. He could do this. He cleared his throat.

“You said something earlier,” green eyes looked anywhere but at the blue ones above him.

“I said a lot of things,” James answered carefully, not wanting to scuttle their new détente. “Which thing, in particular, do you mean?”

Q thought his face was probably glowing bright enough to warn ships away from dangerous shores. He, however, was going to risk the rocks.

“I clearly remember you making certain promises, and as of yet I haven’t seen any movement towards your fulfilling them.”

A corner of James’s mouth lifted a fraction. “Promises, Q?”

“Yes, promises. Starting with taking me back to the hotel, I believe. The garden here is lovely, however I think the rest of your promises included a certain set of architectural requirements and the balustrade and walkway are in no way equivalent.”

James leaned forward and rested his lips on Q’s ear; Q didn’t try to camouflage the shiver that raced through him. “Are you suggesting that I take you back to the hotel and fuck you like I promised?” He kissed the sensitive spot just below Q’s ear, and then nipped at the tendon along his neck. “Do you trust me to take you apart and then put you back together again, Simon?

Q closed his eyes tightly and nodded. “Yes, James. Of course, I trust you.”

A tension leftover from their earlier fight faded from Bond’s body, and he wrapped himself tightly around _his Simon_ as a shiver of his own caught him by surprise.

“Then let me take you home and start fulfilling those promises,” he whispered against Q’s lips, and the younger man wanted to crawl into Bond’s arms and drown in his hot breath and hotter gaze. “I will take care of everything—give you _everything_—if you trust enough to let me.”

Then Q—_Simon_—nodded, a promise of his own, grateful beyond words that for once wishes did come true.

The mission could wait another 24 hours. The future couldn’t.


End file.
